Chapter 2

[Finally, good luck.]

The television screen snapped off.

Su Cheng felt as though she had just watched a horror movie. Her heart pounded faster, weighed down by an added sense of oppression.

"Ding-dong~"

The phone in her waistband vibrated.

Su Cheng took it out. A pop-up showed a new message on VX.

Su Cheng was bewildered and uncertain. "Can I receive messages from outside here?"

She hurriedly tapped the green bubble app, only to find a notification that she had been added to a new group.

Apartment owners' group, No. 1167, X Street, Zone E. 51 members in total.

In the member list, the group owner's avatar was a solid black background, while everyone else had gray silhouette avatars.

[Group owner: Messaging is disabled in this group. It is for announcements only.]

[Group announcement:

1. Only the top floor of the apartment building is habitable, with 50 residents in total. Residents without enough points to pay for utilities will be evicted, and the apartment will bind itself to new residents.

2. The supermarket is on basement level one, open from 8:00-24:00. Residents may leave the apartment building from 8:00-22:00. An access card is required to go outside.

3. You may add the group owner as a contact for material recycling. State your purpose in the contact request. Do not disturb without a reason.

4. Phones cannot be used in instance planes. To avoid losing them, owners are advised not to take their phones into instances.

5. Fighting is prohibited inside the apartment building. Violators will be evicted!

6. Do not wander outside your room or disturb other owners without reason. Anyone caught doing so will be fined an unspecified amount.

7. Entering other residents' rooms and conducting private trades within the apartment building are prohibited. Anyone caught will be severely punished.]

Su Cheng silently read through it, carefully committing it to memory.

Afterward, she tried messaging and calling friends in her contacts, but every attempt returned an out-of-service-area message. Not one succeeded.

"All right, so I really can't contact the outside world."

Her last shred of hope shattered.

Sitting on the sofa, Su Cheng still found it unbelievable. She had truly arrived in another world, one completely removed from the place where she had lived before-

A separate space.

Judging by the apartment's name, there might also be a Zone A, a Zone B... With zones and streets, who knew how many survival apartment buildings like this existed?

If she wanted to go back, she had to obtain a "pass."

She suddenly remembered that news report. Could the missing people have been dragged into apartment buildings too...? There were probably more than the 200,000 publicly reported. To avoid causing panic, the news often understated the numbers.

"I wonder how many points a pass costs. Probably not cheap. I'll have to check the supermarket on basement level one to find out."

"Ding-dong~"

Her phone vibrated again. The resident next door in 1217 had sent her a contact request.

After Su Cheng accepted, 1217 pulled her straight into a 50-person apartment owners' group without the group owner. The members had all changed their nicknames to their room numbers.

[01: Is anyone planning to clear an instance? If the rules are real, points are really important.]

[50: This place is seriously creepy...]

[08: I'm already outside my room. There are detailed rules posted on the wall by the elevators. They come out blurry when I photograph them with my phone, so you'll have to come out and look yourselves.]

[38: Are you going to do an instance mission? I'll go too. See if you can form a team!]

[29: I'm coming too!]

[36: I don't dare go. I'm scared... Everything here feels so terrifying. What will the instances be like? I'm really scared!]

[08: No instances, no points. Sooner or later, you die. I don't want to die, anyway. I want to make it back to the real world alive.]

Su Cheng strongly agreed with 1208. Without doing instance missions, they would die sooner or later. They could not forget the monthly utilities payment of 1,000 points, either. Fail to pay, and they would be evicted.

Eviction meant-death.

Su Cheng bit her fingertip, her expression grave. Urgency weighed on her heart. If she wanted to return alive, she had to do something.

"I can't just sit here. I need to take the initiative!"

Su Cheng searched the apartment but found neither a scrap of food nor any knives or other weapons capable of inflicting damage.

"Looks like I'll have to buy them at the supermarket myself..."

She left her phone on the sofa and took another look at the unfamiliar apartment. She would be living here for a long time.

The front door had a fingerprint lock. Only after stepping outside did Su Cheng discover that the apartments formed a square around the central elevator lobby.

Every apartment had an identical brown steel-and-wood door, with a room number plaque above it.

The four elevators were no different from those in the real world, except for a red warning sign on the blank wall beside elevators ③ and ④, reminding residents not to take the wrong ones.

The displays for elevators ① and ② showed that they were descending.

"Looks like some people have already taken the elevators. Probably those people from the group..."

Wherever one went, there was never a shortage of people brave enough to go first.

A sheet of paper was posted on the blank wall beside the elevators.

[Notice: Elevators ① and ② lead to normal instances. Elevators ③ and ④ lead to special instances. The instance each floor leads to is randomized each time. Floor instances refresh daily.]

[Note: Each time an elevator stops at a floor, only one person may exit. Each elevator holds a maximum of 11 people.]

"Only one person each time... Looks like teams aren't allowed. Whether you meet someone you know in an instance is entirely down to fate."

In that brief interval, elevator ② had already begun ascending.

"Ding~"

The doors of elevator ② opened.

Without hesitation, Su Cheng strode inside. Just as she stepped in, two girls ran in after her.

The elevator doors closed.

Su Cheng looked at the two young girls. They looked exactly alike-a pair of twins. One wore her hair in a bun, the other in a ponytail.

The girl with the bun gave the ponytailed girl an encouraging pat. "Hesitation means defeat. Elevator ② it is!"

She turned to Su Cheng with a brilliant smile. "Right, big sis?"

Sensing her goodwill, Su Cheng nodded and returned her smile. "Yes."

The ponytailed girl was timid, tears brimming in her eyes. Their reddened corners made it clear she had already cried. Despite the encouragement, she still bit her lip, unable to speak.

[Please select a floor-]

A mechanical female voice came from the small speaker above the elevator doors.

After a moment's hesitation, Su Cheng chose 6, the same digit as in her room number.

The girl with the bun tightly clasped her ponytailed younger sister's hand. "You choose first. I'll pick the floor above yours. But promise me-we both have to come back safe, no matter what."

The ponytailed girl nodded tearfully. After hesitating, she chose 2, and her older sister with the bun chose 3.

The elevator began descending.

Without stopping along the way, it soon reached the sixth floor.

Ding~

The elevator doors opened.

Beyond the doors was pitch-black darkness. Nothing was visible. She could not even tell whether she would step into empty air when she entered it.

Darkness meant the unknown, and nothing stirred the fear deep in one's heart like the unknown.

Su Cheng took a deep breath.

"Good luck, big sis!"

"Good luck, big sis."

The two girls' voices came from behind her. Su Cheng turned back. "You two, too."

Giving herself no more chance to lose her nerve, Su Cheng gritted her teeth and resolutely stepped into the darkness ahead.

Author's note:

None.

Chapter 2

There was no missed step or fall as she had imagined. Su Cheng's feet landed firmly on the ground.

The darkness around her abruptly brightened. Su Cheng immediately covered her eyes, waiting a few seconds to adjust before looking around.

She was in the middle of a plaza.

People came and went across the vast plaza. It was a summer evening. Elderly people took children on after-dinner walks, couples held hands as they planned what to eat, and teenagers leaped along on skateboards...

Safe. No danger at all.

She was still wearing her original white T-shirt and jeans, which fit right in with her surroundings.

Su Cheng's tightly clenched heart relaxed a little. Had she been lucky enough to enter a low-risk instance?

But she soon knitted her brows. No, it could not be that simple...

As though confirming her guess, a mechanical voice sounded in her mind:

[Welcome to the normal instance: Paulownia Blossom City.]

[Basic mission: Survive for 5 days. Complete the mission to receive 100 points and return to the apartment.]

If surviving five days counted as completing the mission, that meant even survival would be a problem for the residents.

Su Cheng scanned her surroundings, trying to gather more information about this instance.

Across the road stood a shopping mall with an illuminated advertising billboard. A news bulletin was playing on it.

[Cases of rabies infection have continued to rise recently. Symptoms include high fever, coughing, bloodshot eyes, and extreme aggression... Citizens are advised to avoid contact with such patients whenever possible and limit outings. If you discover anyone with these symptoms, call the police immediately!]

[Repeating the bulletin: cases of rabies infection have recently...]

Su Cheng's heart lurched, and her expression changed drastically. A bad premonition surfaced, and she immediately ran toward a taxi parked by the road.

Where did news reports about rabies infections appear most often?

-Zombie movies!

And at this hour, the plaza was one of the most crowded places. Once the virus broke out here, there would be nowhere to run.

Recalling scenes of cities overrun by zombies in movies, Su Cheng felt her scalp prickle. An intense desire to survive surged through her, and she ran straight toward the taxi parked at the roadside.

The driver was scrolling on his phone while waiting for customers. Su Cheng's sudden entry startled him, and his phone slipped from his hand and fell beneath the seat. Somewhat annoyed, he said, "Why so rough, young lady? You gave me a fright."

Su Cheng had no time to explain. "Driver, take me to the nearest roadside shop, right now!"

Since cases of the zombie virus had already appeared, Su Cheng had little time left to stock up. Any one of the people walking through this city could be an infected person on the verge of turning.

She had to hurry!

To save time, Su Cheng preferred a roadside shop to the mall's basement supermarket.

The basement supermarket had plenty of goods, but she would have to wait for an elevator, and it covered such a large area that finding the sections she needed would take time.

By comparison, a roadside shop would let her get what she needed faster.